UPDATE: Andrew Revkin responds with an update on Dot Earth, which I repeat here. He now agrees that privacy expectations were not justified in the UEA Climategate emails. Perhaps now we’ll see some discussions of them, with publications of selected Climategate emails, on Dot Earth in the future.
– Anthony
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From the NYT Dot Earth Blog, Monday, Nov 29th, 2010:
[Nov. 29, 3:41 p.m. | Updated In the last couple of days, some conservative commentators have compared the treatment of the East Anglia climate files in this post with the dissemination of Wikileaks files by The Times and charged that a gross double standard exists.
I’ll note two things about my coverage of the unauthorized distribution of the climate files:
First, while I initially did not publish the contents of the climate files and e-mails (at the request of Times lawyers, considering the uncertain provenance and authenticity of the materials at the time), I did (from the start) provide links to the caches of material set up elsewhere on the Web.
Second, in the rush on the day the files were distributed across the Web, I called them “private” when, in fact, I should have said their senders had presumed they were private. As I’ve said off and on since then, given that much of the research discussed in the exchanges was done using taxpayers’ money, any expectation of privacy wasn’t justified.]
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The NYT published details in 2005 about US efforts to eavesdrop on Al Qaeda, and is publishing info from the stolen Wikileaks Iraq messages, but they they wouldn’t publish the ClimateGate emails.
Mr. Revkin, your selective bias, and the bias of your newspaper (and your Dot Earth Blog) is screaming loudly for all to hear.
From Powerline blog:
The New York Times is participating in the dissemination of the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it in one way or another via WikiLeaks. My friend Steve Hayward recalls that only last year the New York Times ostentatiously declined to publish or post any of the Climategate e-mails because they had been illegally obtained.
Surely readers will recall Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s inspiring statement of principle:
“The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”
Interested readers may want to compare and contrast Revkin’s statement of principle with the editorial note posted by the Times on the WikiLeaks documents this afternoon. Today the Times cites the availability of the documents elsewhere and the public interest in their revelations as supporting their publication by the Times. Both factors applied in roughly equal measure to the Climategate emails.
Without belaboring the point, let us note simply that the two statements are logically irreconcilable. Perhaps something other than principle and logic were at work then, or are at work now. Given the Times’s outrageous behavior during the Bush administration, the same observation applies to the Times’s protestations of good faith.
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h/t to WUWT reader “rk”
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sharper00 says:
November 29, 2010 at 1:19 pm
“If you’re going to tell me that this is all very trustworthy and above board and we can all sleep safely knowing over classifying documents is treated very seriously indeed then I really don’t believe you.”
Well, shaper00, I am glad to see that you found your voice. This tirade was your topic the whole time. Your comments about climategaters were simply irrelevant. Now, forge ahead, shaper00. Attack the USA’s classification of documents as secret or whatever. Bang your head against that wall. I will enjoy each and every moment.
If you read today’s posts at Commentary Magazine’s blog, they have discovered that the NYT and other Leftists have discovered in the emails strong support among Middle Eastern leaders for the neoconservative position on Iran. I have a hunch that a big policy change is coming and that these emails were planted as a way of maneuvering past the extreme Left wing of the Left wing of the Democratic Party. (Notice I used the word ‘hunch’ not the word ‘predict’.)
In your update note you have UAE (whic is United Arab Emirates) where I presume you want it to read UEA (University of Easy Access, or East Anglia).
Mr sharper00: in an earlier post you claimed, “You (or anyone) doesn’t have an automatic right to see any and all emails as suggested here…” Oh yes he/she/ anyone most definitely does. In Bartnicki v. Vopper 532 U.S. 514 (2001) the US Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment protected the publication of lawfully obtained info regardless of whether it was initially obtained illegally. It is a crime w/o a court order to intercept a telephone conversation but the court ruled that this cannot be constitutionally applied to the media when they report on matters of public concern. Viewed in this light are not the NYT claims of ‘illegally obtained & private’ emails a crock? Or does one think that monstrous costs of climate change legislation or the questionable science (as revealed in the emails) behind it is not of ‘public concern’?
Thanks for posting the statement from Andrew Revkin. Goodness, the techtonic plates have shifted. I am thinking his statement amounts to an epiphany.
davidg says: Zeke, I for one am damn glad they published the stuff
November 29, 2010 at 2:24 pm
By “stuff,” he means Julian Assange published the Social Security numbers of U.S. servicemen and women in Afghanistan. I fail to see any thing to be damn glad about attacking volunteer soldiers in action by publishing private information.
Even if the charges of rape and molestation against Assange turn out to be false, who could possibly have any sympathy for such a vicious underhanded slanderer of our boots on the ground.
sharper00 says: November 29, 2010 at 4:52 am
“Sharperoo justifies the NYT stance “
No I’m not justifying any stance. ….
People may feel that they have a right to emails written by scientists just as others may feel they have a right to know what their government is doing in their name.
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Well: Sharper00 if you can’t see the difference between the two………. I guess that is your problem.
Douglas
davidg says:
November 29, 2010 at 2:24 pm
“Zeke, I for one am damn glad they published the stuff, your protest is feeble-minded at best. This leakage let’s Americans know what kind of nonsense goes on under the cloak of secrecy!”
By “cloak of secrecy,” I intelligently and logically assume you are referring to “the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or… the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or…any works or measures undertaken for or connected with the fortification or defense of any place.”
And by “leakage,” I may correctly point out that you mean communicating, publishing, and collecting this information and giving it to the enemy in time of war.
Just to be clear the 2010 Atlantic accumulated cyclone energy is the tenth most active since 1950. The record isn’t bad beginning about then. Before then there were few to none aircraft intentionally flying into Atlantic storms, no doppler radars, and no satellites taking pictures of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulated_cyclone_energy#Atlantic_hurricane_seasons_by_ACE_index.2C_1950.E2.80.932010
steveta_uk –
downplaying what Paul Hudson at the BBC received more than a month before the CRU release makes no sense. the fact is BBC sat on that information for more than 5 weeks and has never released details of the “chain of emails” Hudson received or divulged who “forwarded” them to Hudson, which is what the Beeb claimed occurred. no-one has ever stated he was “copied” the “chain of emails”.
given that the “chain of emails” Hudson linked to and authenticated are some of the most damaging as they discuss what lay people could easily understand, namely that the CAGW scenario was not happening AS PREDICTED, then it was unconscionable for the BBC to withhold this information.
as Hudson wrote in his post which disturbed the Team: Whatever happened to Global Warming?
I just heard Big Mouth Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg trashing the NYT for their hypocrisy in refusing to publish the Crutape Letters but serving as a major conduit for Wickileaks. Makes me wonder if their fact checkers aren’t monitoring WUWT. You could sue ’em for plagiarism….
@shamper00, of course you are right to point out that someone somewhere has a suspect for Wikileaks in solitary confinement. I forgot about that fine work in law enforcement – as the cables continued to leak.
And, credit where credit is due! Your rapt attention please!
Lieberman: Shut Down WikiLeaks
Wikileaks’ release of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables is “nothing less than an attack on the national security of the United States, as well as that of dozens of other countries,” Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement on Sunday.
I am all for such aboutfacing statements, but this is on the eve of the loss of a majority in the House, where the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants the U.S. to formally declare Wikileaks a terrorist organization.
juanslayton says:
November 29, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I just heard Big Mouth Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg trashing the NYT for their hypocrisy in refusing to publish the Crutape Letters but serving as a major conduit for Wickileaks. Makes me wonder if their fact checkers aren’t monitoring WUWT. You could sue ‘em for plagiarism….
+++++++
Dear John,
More likely O’Reilly and Goldberg got it off Powerline Blog, http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027788.php, where I first saw it last night! ;-}
(BTW, Powerline occasionally comments favorably on the type of science WUWT espouses, occasionally only in the sense that climate science isn’t its main focus.)
Best,
Mike Fox
Larry King interviews Hillary Clinton in regards to Wikileaks – Wikileaks explained
Glenn Beck showed how the Open Society Institute connects with Wikileaks…
Top down, bottom up, inside out…
===
Can hardly wait for more mocking commentary on the Obama State Department. Leno’s writers must be having more fun right now than any human should be allowed to have. Conan O’Brien, maybe Letterman, even Bill Maher. Saturday night live of course. Just about every stand-up comic around will want to take some cheap shots. Like I said before, rollicking good fun. I wish Monty Python’s Flying Circus was still around.
Revkin ought to have posted a fresh piece on the issue on his blog. Merely ‘updating’ one that was made last year is not sufficient to address NYT’s and dot.earth’s hypocrisy. Just how many of his readers will be aware of Revkin’s mea culpa unless they read archives routinely?
Revkin hasn’t done enough to wash away the stink of hypocrisy. He ought to be reminded of that.
The NYT is second only to Al Qaeda in hating the USA.
Well that’s something with Mr. Revkin’s post. Good update, and thank you.
Another tepid reaction moved by outcry? I’ll take what can be gotten–lol.
re Judd 11/29, 4:36:
We had an interesting FOIA uproar in our county, which resulted in the County Board lobbying the State assembly to change state FOIA laws (to no avail).
We pay for government email accounts for all public officials, with the logic being that all public business shall be conducted through these accounts, which will then be FOIA-ready at all times.
Unfortunately, many officials got in the lazy habit of simply treating their email accounts as indiscriminate email, and discussing public business in personal accounts, and vice versa.
Any email sent TO or FROM a government account is a public document. Even if it contains personal information.
You don’t PUT THAT in a public account email.
The Board wished to redact personal info from FOIAed emails.
No. As it was IN a government document, it was FOIA.
Any public business dicussed on private accounts?
Those portions of private emails discussing public business were ruled FOIA-able.
If the CRU people were foolish and sloppy enough (and the quality of their work makes this nearly a given) to include mass amounts of private slop on their government funded accounts discussing government funded business, too bad for them.
And all the more reason it should be published.
Before budget deliberations every year!
http://www.bu.edu/pardee/research/arts-media-and-climate-change/
This symposium aims to examine the shaping of perceptions of climate change within Europe and the United States, and ask: ‘what is the role of the media and the arts in determining this perception and enabling an appropriate response to climate change?’
Sounds like a bogus symposium. How to use the media to sell ‘an appropriate response’ to AGW. Should be selling itself by now according to Hansen. Who determines the appropriate response? Wonder what kind of hacks they could find to speak at this.
# Andrew C. Revkin, Senior Fellow at the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, blogwriter for the New York Times’ “Dot Earth”
Hmmm. Imagine that. Of course, impartiality is a cornerstone of the NYT. 😉 😉
We would like to chime in with our own take on the criminal liberal bias of America’s newspaper of record :
crimesofthetimes.blogspot.com
COTT: We read the New York Times so you don’t have to.
The logo of the NYT, “All the news that’s fit to print”, should be changed to reflect their relentless liberal agenda and read: “All the news that fits, we print”.